Humanities
The Vietnam Veteran’s History Project had two parts. In groups of three we interviewed a Vietnam Veteran about his experiences during the war and the long term effects it had. My guy was Joe Perino, a disabled veteran. The interviews had to be at least 30 minutes and are sent to the Library of Congress where they’ll be displayed on their website. The other part was a written essay about the Gulf of Tonkin. We sorted through biased documents to try and pick out the true events that took place in the Gulf of Tonkin. Using historical thinking skills we took a stand on what we believed really happened. For the exhibition we had 2-5 minute clips from our interviews playing on a DVD while we were all upstairs with excerpts from our papers. To lead up to this project we took a field trip to the Southern Ute Museum in Ignacio. There we met with Rod Grove, a Southern Ute Veteran who served in Vietnam. He talked about his experiences and the effects of PSTD and Agent Orange. In a park near the Museum the Southern Utes have made a memorial to acknowledge all their Veterans. They have different ones for the different wars and Rod showed us where his name was on the Vietnam list.
The roles in our group were divided into Communicator, Logistics, and Tech. I was the communicator so my role was to contact our Veteran and make plans for where and when to do the interview. The logistics person was in charge of paperwork and the tech person made sure we had a camera that worked and burned the interview onto DVD’s to send to the Library of Congress and the Veteran. I succeeded in my role for one thing because I’m good at talking to adults I don’t know. I also succeeded because I’m finally capable of stepping back and not dominating in a group setting, and I let what happened happen instead of fighting it. I could have been better at reminding our Veteran when things were so we didn’t have scheduling conflicts. I could have trusted my group members even more than I did because they’re great and were responsible. If I got to choose my role again I would stay with communicator because I enjoyed that job. All the groups wrote their own questions to ask in the interview. We came prepared with 52 questions, which was a lot more than a lot of the other groups, but we didn’t use a single one. Joe started talking and he talked the whole interview for 40 minutes, we just had to listen. I’ll never forget the way Joe kind of came alive and was in a different place when he talked about his team and buddies he had during the war. He came to life talking about them and telling stories. He brought photo albums with him and it amazed me he remembered who everyone was and what had been happening at the time of each picture. He had a lot of really interesting points and stories about things you don’t hear in normal war stories. Those little details that really made the world he talked about come to life. For example he talked about the clouds of mosquitos you’d see lifting off the rice patty fields and how the only way to keep from being eaten alive was to wear strait deet in your helmet. Something I really liked was that he kept bringing it back to the TV in people’s homes. Those people could just turn it off if the war program got to be too much, but these Veterans didn’t have that remote. Once it was on it was on forever. There is no end to the war these men are fighting. As soon as the combat and fighting is over, they have new battles of PTSD and Agent Orange. The biggest battle is fought at home in the heart. War is now so much more than that to me. It’s personal. It’s real. War used to be this horrible intangible thing I’d never met before. But after this project that changed. Now I understand it and I’ve seen what it can do. My Veteran is such a nice sweet man who was devoured by war. It’s harder to ignore it knowing that men like him are out there everyday dying for our country and we don’t even know their name, or the sacrifice they’re making.
To write our Gulf of Tonkin papers, we spent a while reading a packet of different documents about the event. The historical thinking skill that was hardest for me was sourcing. This was the hardest because I wasn’t very good at figuring where the document came from or any of that stuff. I got help from peers and Stephen to work through this problem but I definitely could improve. I was best at either close reading or reading the silences. Close reading was where you figured out things based on the tone of the document and the language used while reading the silences was just identifying what was missing in each document. I think these skills were easier for me because I naturally read into the language used and the way things are phrased. By the end of the document packet I was able to pick up on close reading things quicker.
Writing these papers was a long process of critiquing and revising. One major change I was able to make was cutting my evidence quotes in half. I had giant chunks of quoted material when all I really needed was a sentence or two. It made it a lot smoother to read and less boring. Another thing I changed was a change between my final draft and exhibition excerpt. In the paragraph I chose to use for exhibition I had a metaphor relating U.S. actions in Vietnam to a ‘childish blame game.’ I chose my paragraph because of the metaphor. For my exhibition excerpt I changed it and edited out some of the words used, to make it less harsh in case Veterans read it. This was really hard for me because often when I write something I become attached to it and deleting it or changing it is hard for me to do. I’m glad I did this, even though I never had a Veteran read my paper. While it made my argument less powerful, it probably did make it easier for people to take.
Biology
Before writing historical fiction stories, we spent several weeks studying World War I and reading the novel All Quiet on the Western Front. After learning the causes of the war, and the results after its end, we started to brainstorm. The project was to write a historical fiction story that was between 5 and 10 pages. The idea was to show The Truth of War through your story. Stories ranged from civilians, to soldiers. My story focused on the family of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who’s assassination triggered the war.
In order to write our stories, we studied several literary elements. The strongest one in my story was historical integration. This is a strong section of my story because it describes the world Sophie grows up in. It makes my story come alive and believable. You can imagine what day-to-day life must have been like for Sophie.
“Shivering I opened my newest book. It has just arrived from England. I cracked it open, running my fingers over the title page. Eagerly reading the title page, I flipped to the first page. A Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A servant knocking on my door to announce that breakfast was ready brought me back from India, leaving Mary to cope alone. Thanking her, I dressed and hurried down to the table. Tardiness is not accepted. I arrived at the table to be greeted by a delicious aroma. Adrian had come out with food. He is an incredible cook, and has been promoted to nobleman status for his excellent cooking. It was a traditional breakfast, with csiga and mákos patkó pastries, boiled eggs, csabai kolbász sausages, bundáskenyér, black pudding, rice pudding, and many different homemade jams. Breakfast is always eaten together.”
At the same time historical integration was my strength, it was also my weakness. I would get really into the historical details and research, and focus on little things, instead of writing my story. The problem is I get really interested in whatever it is I looked up, and then get distracted reading about it, whether I need more info for my story or not. I spent at least an hour researching food for the breakfast scene, and every fact, name, and detail was researched extensively. I spent too much time researching the tiny details and finding the perfect info, when I should have focused more on just finishing writing. At one point I turned off the wifi connection to keep from looking things up. Towards the end I started setting a timer and when the time ran out I had to pick something from the things I’d found to use, or forget that detail.
My story completely changed from the first draft to the final draft. Originally my story was centered around Sophie having a forbidden romance with the stableboy Zoltán. She snuck out to meet him and almost drowned in the pond. The parents found out and were very angry with her, and she with them. That was my rising action and internal conflict. A suggestion was to make the readers feel what it’s like to have a crush on someone. From the beginning I knew I didn’t want this to solely be a love story, because I always write love stories, so I decided to cut that whole aspect. Because of this I was rewriting my whole story days before it was due. Cutting the romance may not have made my story stronger, but it was challenging for me, and I like my story much better without the romance. The other major revision I made while rewriting my story was to bring in Sophie and Ernst’s great-grandchildren. Instead of just Sophie as the narrator, I changed it so the kids are reading her diary. This caused my story to switch between the perspectives of Princess Sophie, and Prince Ernst’s great-grandson, Maximilian. This made my story much stronger, and allowed me to jump around in time. I’m really glad I changed it so Sophie had a diary, because it helps me to explain the gaps in my story, and I only had to explain the things I wanted. My story reads much better now too.
By making the major revisions I made, it enabled me to easily add a challenge extension, which I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do. The challenge extension I did was multiple points of view. I didn’t really chose, it kind of chose me. As I rewrote my story, multiple points of view fell seamlessly into the storyline. It was after I started to do it that I realized it would get me the challenge extension option. Maximilian, the great-grandson, is actually real and he’s currently 12, so his character was based on a real person. This is a section of my story at the very end. The italics is the diary entry, and after that Sophie stops reading and it switches back to Max’s perspective. This makes my story stronger because it creates suspense in areas, like in the section below because you want to know what happens to the children but it’s interrupted by the descendants. It allows readers to relate on two levels: as modern day people, and as someone during Sophie’s time.
Arrangements have been made for us to move in with Jaroslav von Thun und Hohenstein and his wife. He was our father’s hunting partner and friend. They come and stay at the castle for a few days, while we prepare to leave. Maximilian, Ernst, and I have been anticipating and wondering what it will be like there. Although he was our father’s friend, we had never met him or his wife before now. When the time came, carrying my last bag in hand, I took the steps down to the waiting car boldly and fearlessly. The boys followed, less confident of themselves. Looking out the window I watched as the castle disappeared behind, lost to the past, and we moved forward, towards the future.
She stops reading and looks up at me from the diary in her lap. We sit there in silence for awhile. The sun has stretched above us, and is returning to nest for the night just below the horizon. The sunset lights up the sky with oranges and reds, lighting the world on fire. We watch it burn as the tragic news of our great-great-grandfather’s death sinks in.
Finally, able to stand the silence no longer, I whisper “Is there more?”
Sophie nods slowly, biting her lip. “Just this,” she says, and points to the last page of the diary. This one has no date, just a single paragraph etched purposefully onto the thin and fragile page.